All right, help me out. Mrs. Zut and I had the following conversation this morning, sparked by the sight of one of those ubiquitous “Calvin peeing” bumper stickers.
Her: Would it be legal to display a bumper sticker with a picture of a penis on it? Me: Mmmm, I dunno. Her: How about a t-shirt with a picture of a penis on it? could you wear that? Me: Mmmm, I dunno. [Then, guessing wildly:] I suppose laws would be different from place to place. Her: [Seeing through the wild guess:] But wouldn’t this be a Constitutional issue? Freedom of speech versus obscenity? Me: [Reverting to form:] Mmmm, I dunno. Her: Would there be any difference in the legal standing of a t-stirt and, say, a billboard? Certainly you couldn’t erect (hah!) a billboard with the picture of a penis on it? Me: Mmmm, I dunno. [Inspiration strikes] Hey, I know a group of people I could ask!
So how about it? Can anyone help me out? Informed supposition and wild-ass guesses (in addition to the occasional conclusive answer) are, of course, welcome.
Several years ago (when Calvin and Hobbes was still in the papers), I read that a person in a southern state was cited for obscenity for having a “pissing Calvin” sticker on his car. No details, just recollection.
No Constitutional scholar, I; but I think there is something called “community standards”. These vary from state to state, and probably county to county. A friend of mine is an “adult webmaster”, and he told me of the “Scatman case”. It seems there was a person who was posting “scat” (if you don’t know, you probably don’t want to) pictures on his site. He was arrested (and IIRC) convicted for posting obscene material. Personally, I find such photos disgusting beyond words; but I think that if you don’t want to see them, don’t look at them.
Stickers on cars are more difficult to avoid than a page on the internet. I don’t think you could put a sticker depicting a photo of people having sex on your car, because people don’t have a choice as to whether or not they want to see it. My response to seeing such a thing would be, “That’s really tacky. That person has some issues to deal with.” But other people will take extreme offense.
Is a picture of a cartoon character eliminating bodily fluids “obscene”? Well, I’ve seen men at urinals on TV sitcoms; but some people will take offense at just about anything.
So I’d say it depends on your “community standards” whether something is acceptable. The trouble is, in our mobile society no one can be sure they are conforming to such standards as they travel around. Freedom of Speech; or obscenity? AFAIK, it hasn’t been tested in the Supreme Court.
It all depends on what a prosecutor wants to prosecute and how much he wants to persue the issue. You can prosecute anyone you want for obscenity (a word that merely means “something that disgusts the person using it”). In theory, you could do it for a violent video game, but I doubt many prosecutors would bother. It’s a crapshoot in most cases (other than child porn, which is de facto obscene under the law). Some prosecutors do it even though they know they don’t stand a chance of winning, simply it looks good when they’re up for re-election (“Tough on porn – it’s the courts that insisted on that pesky first amendment crap”). It’s all determined on a case-by-case basis.
You could do whatever you want and see if you get prosecuted. Most people don’t want to chance it; it can get expensive and nasty.
[Lawyer hat ON]
It all comes down to what, if anything, you are trying to say. The Supremes addressed the issue during the Viet Nam War (some law student want to fill in the case name and cite? we all studied it in Constitutional law).
In the case, a young gentleman, in a courthouse in California, was arrested for wearing a jacket that read “F**k the Draft” The Supremes (Diana Ross abstained) said, uh-uh, you can’t arrest him - he was expressing his opinion, in the most graphic terms, about the draft.
How does this relate to Calvin peeing? Well, it depends on why you put the decal on your car. I’ve seen several on GMC trucks where Cal is peeing on a Ford logo. You could probably make creative arguments about the time as a child you were almost killed when the brakes in mommy’s Ford failed, etc. As for a nekkid penis picture, it might be harder to make an argument, but with a good lawyer, you might be able to find an idea that it symbolizes/criticizes. Of course, such an argument would be aided if it were actually true.
[Lawyer hat OFF]
Sua
So, for instance, if I wore a t-shirt with a picture of a giant penis on it with a caption reading “If you have one of THESE, you have no right to express an opinion on abortion,” I have (arguably) Constitutional protection?
While, on the other hand, if I wore a t-shirt with a picture of a giant penis on it with a caption reading “I shore am proud of my li’l pee-pee,” I don’t have the same level of protection?
And if I wore a t-shirt with a picture of a giant penis on it with a caption reading “I dunno why I’m wearing this,” I have even less (or even no) protection?
(I’m just trying to think of three levels of “ideas” here: profound, banal, and none, which, I’m imagining, would be successively more difficult for a good lawyer to effectively support.)
Mrs. Zut certainly asks interesting questions. I doubt there is anything obscene about a penis. Either God or Evolution decided we needed one. I have one and it’s small but not obscenely so, and I have always been happy with it such as it is.
The question, as Sua so eloquently put it is: Why are you wearing that penis, bub?
If it’s a picture of your own equipment that wouldn’t necessarily be obscene unless you were either advertising or trolling and then it would depend on the neighborhood. In West Hollywood you would just be part of the scenery. On the other hand, it might be obscene if it were attached to one of Mrs. Zut’s apertures. But if you were out strictly for laughs (hahahah…put that thing back in it’s thimble), maybe no one would notice.
A bunch of people in this state (and I’m sure many other states) wear t-shirts from various oyster bars. There is a picture of an oyster with the plea: Shuck me, suck me, eat me raw. That’s not obscene. But some of the shirts have the wording on the front and the oyster bar logo on the back. Is it obscene then? Not to me, but maybe to someone in your neighborhood.
How about the new 7up advertising “Make 7” “up yours”.
Does it make you want to run out and suck the tops off of cans of 7up? I doubt it. Obscene? no. Tasteless? Of course! That’s why it is popular!
“Peel me, squeeze me, make me wine” - Volcano Winery
In Baltimore’s Fells Point there is a fish restaurant called Bertha’s and they give bumper stickers that say “Eat Bertha’s mussels” … I don’t know if everybody find this as suggestive as I do or maybe it’s just my warped mind at work…
Sailer, yer a sick puppy sailor to find anything obscene in that. It’s obvious that no one would EVER develop a suggestive marketing slogan. If they did, people would tend to remember it simply because it IS suggestive…just like you did.
Now I’m going to stay awake nights trying to think up a filthy double-entendre for myself.
Bertha’s is OK, but for real double-entrendre marketing from Maryland bar/restaurants, you gotta head danny ocean to Ocean City to a place called The Bearded Clam.
You’ve cut to the heart of the problem of free speech, Zut. My con. law professor would have been proud. What is a message, and is that message worthy of protection? See the slippery slope there - “worthy of protection” means somebody’s value judgments are going to be enforced. Generally, the rule (with a gazillion shadings and nuances) is that the idea must have some (nebulously defined level of) redeeming artistic, social, political, etc., value. It’s great fun to figger it all out. Riddle me this: is a painting like Monet’s Water Lillies, whose only real message is “Flowers are pretty”, worthy of protection?
BTW, I always thought the Supremes’ best decisions were the ones granting protection to illegitimate children, *See, e.g., *Love Child. (Sorry, my favorite legal joke).
Sua
